The Mercat Cross of Edinburgh is a market cross, the structure that marks the market square of the market town of Edinburgh. It stands in Parliament Square next to St Giles' Cathedral, facing the High Street in the Old Town of Edinburgh.
Description and history
The current mercat cross is of Victorian origin, but was built close to the site occupied by the original. The Cross is first mentioned in a charter of 1365 which indicates that it stood about from the east end of St. Giles'. In 1617, it was moved to a position a few yards (metres) down the High Street now marked by "an octagonal arrangement of cobble stones" (actually setts). This is the position shown on Gordon of Rothiemay's map of 1647 (see external link below).
In 1756, the Cross was demolished and parts of the pillar re-erected in the grounds of Drum House, Gilmerton. A monument now stands there and on it a plaque that reads: "Erected in memory of the old Mercat Cross of Edinburgh which stood at The Drum from 1756 to 1866. This Monument was erected November 1882". Five of the eight circular medallions featuring sculpted heads from the understructure of the original cross were eventually secured by Sir Walter Scott who incorporated them into the garden wall of his house at Abbotsford in the Scottish Borders.
In 1866, the pieces of the cross from Drum House were reassembled on a new stepped pedestal on the east side of the north door of St Giles (that pedestal now supports the Canongate Cross). Because the pillar had been broken during demolition in 1756, its height was reduced after reassembly from and its girth made thinner. In 1885, it was placed on a new octagonal drum substructure at its current location, south of the original pre-1617 position. This was designed by Sydney Mitchell and paid for by William Gladstone, M.P. for Midlothian from 1880 to 1895, whose father and grandfather hailed from Edinburgh. The sculpted heads on the original cross were replaced by the royal arms of Britain, Scotland, England and Ireland, the burgh arms of Edinburgh, Leith and the Canongate, and the arms of the University.
The original shaft was replaced when the Cross underwent extensive renovations in 1970. A study of the stonework, commissioned by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) and carried out in 1971, concluded that: embedded in the current structure are two pieces of an old shaft stone, that the capital belongs to the first part of the 15th century and that the unicorn is an 1869 reproduction of its predecessor on the 1617 cross based upon a description in contemporary accounts.
The tympanum above the wooden studded door on the east side of the Cross bears the following Latin inscription composed by William Gladstone, in incised Gothic letters:
Proclamations, burnings and punishments
As elsewhere in Scotland, important civic announcements were made at the mercat cross. In Edinburgh, royal and parliamentary proclamations that affected all of Scotland were publicly read. The practice of announcing successions to the monarchy and the calling of parliamentary general elections is continued to this day by heralds of the Lord Lyon King of Arms.
Legend has it that in 1513 while the artillery was being prepared in Edinburgh before the Battle of Flodden, which resulted in a Scottish defeat, a demon called Plotcock read out the names of those who would be killed at the Mercat Cross. According to Pitscottie, a former Provost of Edinburgh, Richard Lawson, who lived nearby, threw a coin at the Cross to appeal against this summons and survived the battle.
The Protestant reformer John Knox relates that for one hour and four hours on two separate days in 1565 Sir James Tarbet was tied to the Cross and pelted with eggs for saying the Mass, which had been banned by the Scottish Parliament five years previously.
After the surrender of the "Queen's Men" ended the "Lang Siege" of Edinburgh Castle William Kirkcaldy of Grange, his brother James and the two jewellers Mossman and Cokke, who had been minting coins in the Queen's name inside the castle, were hanged at the Cross on 3 August 1573.